Elisabeth Wentworth: A Weaving for Alice Kavanagh

A Weaving for Alice Kavanagh

Too proud of having made my way

In the world of men, I came late to the crafts of women.

Arrogant resistance held me back

That, or fear of the scorn I thought would come my way

The relegation reserved for the spinster aunt

Found knitting in the corner while the others were outside

Like much that we fear, the scorn was my own.

I might have known sooner there would be solace in the wool

In the rhythm of the needles, yarn forward, back

Pleasure in forming pattern out of puzzling graph

And the surprising armour against random demands

And interruption to thought.

If I had paid more attention

To whispered family secrets, I would have learned sooner

That my grandmother, at fifteen, had left school

And gone to work as a weaver in the woollen mill.

Like all our women she used her head in adversity

Mastered the looms and rose to run the place

Laughing off suitors until the one with grey eyes

Charmed her away.

She missed the work but not the early rising

And vowed no daughter of hers would ever walk to work

In the dark—our family collars turned white overnight.

Now, dear Alice, I will atone for my arrogance.

I will knit for you the cabled life

The moss stitch days, the twists and rib

The steady increase of the length.

The pattern will emerge

Your courage and your colours in every blessed row

Your children rising in station by labour and learning

Your descendants free to choose direction, and honour you

By their choices—teachers, healers, music-makers

Poets.

You were the last of our women to walk to work in the dark.

Elisabeth Wentworth